Katie Button’s 5 Essential Fall Ingredients

In addition to seeing her on television on the Magnolia Network show From the Source, you probably most recently saw Katie Button and her team of Spanish-food-obsessed colleagues walk across the stage at this year’s James Beard Foundation awards to accept the honor for outstanding hospitality for her restaurant, Cúrate, in Asheville, North Carolina.

For Button, fall means honing seasonality—at her restaurant and in her home kitchen. When her second child was born four years ago, Button knew she had to step back from some Cúrate duties (an Asheville-based brand that encompasses a restaurant, Spanish wine bar, and online marketplace), which drove her to testing recipes at home while keeping those who do the same at the front of her mind.

“Home is where I originally found my passion for cooking, so returning to create dish ideas and recipes centered on my home kitchen feels like exactly where I was always meant to be,” she says. You can find her inventive, international recipes on the show, in her cookbooks, or on your plate at Cúrate.

On winning the James Beard Award

“Wow, was that an exciting moment. We are so incredibly honored to have received [the James Beard Award For Outstanding Hospitality]. We care immensely about the experiences we create for people at Cúrate and in all our businesses. Both the experiences we create for our guests and the experiences we create for our team are a reflection of hospitality. Hospitality takes the entire team. We all work together each day to deliver food, service, joy, camaraderie, and community that create long-lasting memories.”

Katie Button Shares 5 Ingredients in Her Fridge

• Quartered radicchio or other chicories with the stem partially attached so they stay together in nice chunks. I drizzle them in olive oil and salt, then either grill them or roast them on high heat so that they char on the outside a bit and wilt and become tender and sweeter. Then I drizzle them with honey and a splash of balsamic vinegar.
• My kids love apple cider. You can drink it straight, turn it into a hot beverage by steeping spices in it, or use it to create a glaze for carrots or brussels sprouts or other roasted vegetables by combining it with some vinegar, herbs, salt, and garlic and reducing it down.
• Whenever I think of fall, I think of sage. Toss it into the cavity of an acorn squash with a little bit of cream, butter, brown sugar, and salt, use it in a mushroom cream sauce for pork chops, use it anywhere you might other herbs like thyme or rosemary.
• Celery root makes incredible soup or a puree that is lighter and tastes brighter and more interesting than potato. In the salt episode of From the Source, I made an egg white salt crust, like you would for the typical salt-crusted fish, but I crusted a celery root and baked it. It was incredible!
• Last but not least, I always have sobrasada on hand to kick up a dish or snack—I like it drizzled in honey or served with a little goat cheese. It’s also delicious cooked with eggs and potatoes to feed a crowd. It’s forever in my refrigerator—so much so that we started offering it at Cúrate at Home, our online marketplace for Spanish ingredients.